Anthropological dualism refers to a view in which a human being consists of both a material entity, the body, and an immaterial entity, either the mind or the soul, that is related to the body but not identical to it. Also known as substance dualism, this view is committed to the claim that the soul is an immaterial entity that grounds personal identity through time and change. Two versions of dualism are most common. The more traditional, Cartesian dualism, comes from the philosophy of Rene Descartes. On this view, the mind is the immaterial substance externally related by a causal relation to the body, which is merely a physical entity. The mind is the immaterial entity that contains the capacities for mental function. A second version is known as Thomistic dualism. This form of dualism emphasizes the soul, not the mind, and sees the mind as a faculty of the soul. For the Thomistic dualist, the soul contains the capacities for biological and mental functioning. In this view, the soul is more closely and intimately related to the body than it is in the Cartesian version.
Both versions of dualism acknowledge what is known as functional holism—the view that the person is a functioning body/soul complex and a deeply integrated unity with a complicated and intricate array of mutual functional dependence and causal connection. Ontologically, the dualist holds that body and soul are different entities, though for most of a person’s earthly and eternal life they function as a fully integrated unity. Dualists hold that it is possible for a person to live in a disembodied state, and that the Bible teaches that between death and the return of Christ and final resurrection believers live in an intermediate, disembodied state, awaiting receipt of a resurrection body at the general resurrection.
Anthropological dualism was the dominant view among theologians and the church until the mid-late twentieth century. Dualists argue that a commonsense reading of several key biblical passages supports their view. In 2 Cor. 5:1-10 Paul affirms that “to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord” (v. 8). Paul is assuming here what he has already laid out in 1 Cor. 15, which is a general resurrection of the dead (vv. 52-54), in which for those who have died “in Christ” there is some time that elapses prior to inheriting a resurrection body. The best way to make biblical sense of Paul’s teaching that if he is “absent from the body, he is at home with the Lord” is to posit an “intermediate state” in which the believer lives “at home with the Lord” in a temporarily disembodied state. Dualists suggest that this view best explains several other NT passages that indicate an intermediate state, such as Jesus’ statement to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), and Paul’s statement that his “desire is to depart [from this life] and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23).
Dualists insist that the soul gives a person continuity of personal identity through time and change. This suggests that regardless of the stage of bodily development in the womb or breakdown in approaching death, one is still a person with rights to be respected, thus making both abortion and assisted suicide/euthanasia morally problematic.
See also Abortion; Body; Healthcare Ethics; Humanity; Image of God; Monism, Anthropological; Resurrection; Sanctity of Human Life
Bibliography
Cooper, J. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Eerdmans, 1989; Goetz, S. “Substance Dualism.” Pages 33-74 in In Search of the Soul: Perspectives on the Mind-Body Problem, ed. J. Green. 2nd ed. Wipf & Stock, 2010;
Moreland, J., and S. Rae. Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. InterVarsity, 2000; Swinburne, R. The Evolution of the Soul. Rev. ed. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Scott B. Rae and J. P. Moreland
A duty is something that we are required to perform or avoid because of the binding force of moral or legal obligation. As a moral principle, duty flows from and gives expression to the fact that we are located within a “web of moral relations” that entails obligations to others, to oneself, and, for believers, ultimately to God.
A sense of duty is found in a range of ancient writings (e.g., from Egypt, Babylonia, India, China, Greece, and Rome). In Greco-Roman thought, the Stoics rooted the principle of duty in the assumption that all human beings share a capacity to reason, which enables them to judge what is good or bad based on a natural law that inheres in the universe and not on the basis of human passions or physical desires. All individuals, therefore, participate as fellow citizens within a community of rational beings (regardless of the accidents of birth) that entails duties to God, to oneself, to one’s family members and friends, to the civic order, and even to strangers.
The biblical framework for understanding duty is God’s covenant with Israel. As God’s partner in covenant, Israel is to keep the Ten Commandments, which specify what is owed God and what is owed other human beings (e.g., to honor one’s parents, to avoid murder, adultery, theft, and so on), as well as a range of precepts regarding worship practices and, among other things, obligations to family, to workers and slaves, to the larger communal order (e.g., through a tithe) and those less fortunate (e.g., widows, orphans, and strangers), and even to animals. Prophetic literature reiterates the requirements of God’s law, calling people to avoid worshiping idols and perpetrating injustice on the poor.
Jesus came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). Summarizing the two great “love commands” found in the OT—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”— Jesus’ teaching is rigorist and eschatological. Proclaiming the imminent kingdom of God, Jesus calls his disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him, a call that may entail forgoing normal kinship ties and giving one’s wealth to the poor.
Paul’s letters presuppose that all people can, through conscience, discern God’s law in both
creation and in Scripture. Nonetheless, because of the power of sin, all are in need of God’s redemption in Jesus Christ so that we can fulfill the law in a life of “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Similarly, the Johannine literature stresses how God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is embodied in our love for one another.
Among classical theologians, Thomas Aquinas argues that as rational beings, humans can perceive and enact the natural law, which is coterminous with God’s revealed law. In addition, through grace Christians can fulfill the “new law” written in their hearts, the law of “faith working through love,” and, for some, even the “counsels of the perfection” (chastity, poverty, obedience). Stressing sin’s power over reason, the Reformers draw attention to the way God’s commandments confront us with our duty. Insisting that we do not earn salvation by good works but rather are justified by faith in Christ alone, they also abolish any distinction among Christians, viewing one’s vocation (e.g., as a parent or in a particular occupation) as the location for faith to be worked out in love.
Immanuel Kant also maintains that the moral law confronts us with duty. Unlike God, who embodies the holy law in God’s holy will, we are imperfect beings who are not fully able to determine ourselves according to the dictates of practical reason. Nonetheless, Kant seeks to ground the principle of duty in human reason alone. Making the principle of duty the principle of ethics, he argues that a person’s moral worth is defined by performing one’s duty solely for duty’s sake, regardless of personal inclinations and without calculating the advantages or disadvantages of anticipated consequences. Thus, duty is a “categorical imperative,” which as “unconditioned”—that is, not determined by anything else—must always take the form of a universal principle. In Kant’s “kingdom of ends” we are to act in such a way that we treat the humanity in our own person and in the person of everyone else always as an end and never merely as a means.
G. W. F. Hegel seeks to overcome Kant’s distinction between “duty for duty’s sake” and the goods that our actions might attain by arguing for an organic community based on universally valid principles of reason where the needs of individuals and the community can be reciprocally met and the content of one’s moral duty is defined by one’s position in the community (e.g., as parent, citizen, teacher, merchant). The British Hegelian F. H. Bradley characterized this ethics as an ethics of “my station and its duties.”
Countering the modern tendency to subordinate the principle of duty to the principle of rights (e.g., the rights to life, liberty, property), David Selbourne argues that the civic order, as a web of moral relations, entails not only rights but also general and particular duties to one’s self (e.g., self-restraint, avoiding self-harm, earning a livelihood, gaining education), to other human beings (e.g., to one’s children, parents, spouses, and other family relations, to both friends and strangers, and to past and future generations), to the civic order (e.g., paying taxes, military or jury duties, and public service in general), and to animals and the natural world.
What grounds the principle of duty? Presupposing the idea of a conscience, an inner sense of what is right and wrong, some ground the principle of duty in reason alone, whereas others ultimately ground it in God’s nature or will. For Christians, God’s love manifest in Jesus Christ is the basis for presenting their bodies as a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” and for being transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they can discern God’s will—“what is good, acceptable, and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).
See also Conscience; Deontological Theories of Ethics; Divine Command Theories of Ethics; Law; Obligation; Promise and Promise-Keeping; Righteousness; Ten Commandments
Bibliography
Bradley, F. Ethical Studies: Selected Essays. Liberal Arts Press, 1951; Kant, I. Lectures on Ethics. Trans. L. Infield. Harper & Row, 1963; Selbourne, D. The Principle of Duty: An Essay on the Foundations of the Civic Order. University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
Lois Malcolm
Dying, Care of See Care, Caring
Moral formation is an important goal of wisdom literature, and Ecclesiastes is no exception. The title derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew word qohelet, which means “gatherer of an assembly” and functions as a pen name for the author. According to the epilogue, Qoheleth was a sage who “taught the people” (12:9 [hence the NRSV rendering “Teacher”]). But the teachings of this sage, marked by incongruities and radical skepticism, have perplexed readers, both ancient and modern. Qoheleth himself was perplexed by what he observed in the world, repeatedly declaring that “all is vanity [hebel].” The Hebrew word hebel literally means “vapor” or “breath” and is used as a metaphor for the ephemeral, incomprehensible, and unreliable dimensions of life, whatever is beyond the grasp of mortals. Because of the ubiquity of this motif (thirty-eight occurrences), many conclude that Qoheleth is a thoroughgoing cynic who despairs of finding anything good in life. Others, however, highlight the equally persistent counterpoint of joy that runs throughout his discourse with ever-increasing urgency and verve. There is a growing recognition that the book cannot be reduced to either one of these sentiments; indeed, the contradictions are part and parcel of its message.
Observation of moral incongruities leads Qo-heleth to overturn all notions of human certitude. However, he does not give up his quest to determine what is good (2:3). He presses on to address fundamental questions: What does it mean to be human? How should one live in a world beyond human control?
In reconstructing his moral vision, Qoheleth critically engages traditional sources: wisdom teachings, Torah, Solomonic traditions, as well as other ancient Near Eastern literature. A hallmark of the wisdom tradition, however, is its empirical, contextual, life-centered approach to moral reflection. Qoheleth accordingly gives considerable authority to his own perception and experience. Under the guise of the wise king par excellence, he sets out on an ambitious program to investigate “all that is done under heaven” (1:13). His favorite verb is r’h (“to see, experience”), and he is most often the explicit or implicit subject. Qoheleth reports what he sees: injustice and oppression (3:16; 4:1; 8:9), the unpredictability of divine economy (2:26; 6:1-3), contradictions between traditional precepts and reality (7:15; 8:10-14; 9:11-13). He communicates his findings through literary vehicles that capture the imagination: memorable proverbs, gripping anecdotes, evocative poems. In short, the sage employs all the resources of the wisdom tradition, both its method and its forms, to lend weight to his teachings and to recast traditional profiles of wisdom.
Another element in Qoheleth’s account of the moral life is the fear of God (3:14; 5:6; 7:18; 8:1213; 9:2; 12:13). Rejecting sentimental religiosity, Qoheleth emphasizes the vast distance between God and humanity. Creation is ordered by God, and norms for the good life are a part of this design. But its logic is hidden from mortals, for God is wholly other (3:11; 5:2). God’s inscrutable determination of events and the contingencies of an unpredictable world impinge on human agency, so that humans must relinquish control. They can respond only to what happens, moment by moment (3:1-15; 7:13-14). That is not to say that foresight is useless (10:10). Qoheleth does value wisdom, but he also exposes its limits and vulnerabilities. His teachings are therefore built on humble grounds that recognize both the tragic limitations and the joyous possibilities in humanity’s “portion.”
Qoheleth’s ethic of enjoyment is all the more compelling because of its unflinching realism. Enjoyment entails perceiving things rightly; it is “seeing the good” or “seeing well” (2:1; 3:13; 5:17; 6:6, 9; 7:14; 11:9). The verb r’h connotes not only observation but also the meaningful integration of what one “sees.” And Qoheleth urges his audience to encounter fully both the good and the bad (7:14a). He endorses not a hedonistic ideal that is intent on avoiding pain and maximizing pleasure, but rather an authentic and full-blooded experience of the world.
Enjoyment is described also in terms of the basic pleasures that sustain life: eating, drinking, working, sleeping, being with one’s beloved (2:24-26; 3:12-13, 22; 5:17-19; 7:14; 8:15; 9:7-10; 11:7-12:1). Qoheleth thus presents a material and concrete understanding of the good life. Enjoyment is located resolutely in the fulfillment of fundamental needs, including not only physical but also vocational and relational pleasures. These are the things that God provides in order to make and keep human life human. They describe in concrete terms the desirable goals of life.
By associating enjoyment with basic needs, Qoheleth opposes the insatiability of the human appetite that can lead to destructive consumption. Enjoyment therefore has important socioeconomic implications. Indeed, the book’s preoccupation with such issues is suggested by its frequent use of commercial terms. Although the debate about the book’s provenance is ongoing (with recent scholarship converging on the postexilic period), Qoheleth clearly addresses an economically volatile context in which opportunities for wealth existed alongside risks of financial disaster. To hedge against possible loss, people toil away for more and more in an obsessed attempt to find some security or advantage. The acquisitive impulse that Qohe-leth observes takes on a heightened virulence in contemporary culture, shaped by its technology of mass communication in service to a consumerist ethos. In contrast, Qoheleth’s ethic of joy commends the habit of contentment. Enjoyment is not about the pursuit of more, but rather is the glad appreciation of what is already in one’s possession by “the gift of God.” Likewise, his work ethic is intimately connected with life’s simple joys, not the pursuit of an elusive profit (Brown, “Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do”).
Moral formation takes place in community; Qoheleth, however, seems to dwell in isolation, with communal concerns absent from his selfreferential monologue. Nevertheless, a communal vision may be teased out from what he bemoans in his reflections. When he observes the plight of the oppressed, what disturbs Qoheleth is not only the fact of oppression but also that those who suffer have “no one to comfort them” (4:1). He also laments the absurdity of a solitary miser who toils away, with no companion to share in his riches (4:7-8). The focus of Qoheleth’s despair is the unmitigated isolation of these individuals. In contrast, two are better than one (4:9-12).
A social dimension is also implicit in his most common metaphor for enjoyment, eating and drinking, which in the moral world of the OT takes place in the context of community. Qohe-leth, admittedly, does not describe communal meals, but his rhetoric concerning the proper use of food suggests that an individual’s enjoyment must never come at the expense of neighbor. He condemns irresponsible forms of feasting, which impede a person’s capacity to fulfill social obligations (10:16-20). In contrast, the ethical life is characterized by a different kind of recklessness. The exhortation to “send out your bread upon the waters” (11:1-2) is a call to perform charitable deeds with abandon, and it constitutes an important expansion of Qoheleth’s ethic of enjoyment. One must enjoy the bread in one’s possession; one must also gladly release it for the benefit of others.
See also Old Testament Ethics; Wisdom Literature Bibliography
Brown, W. Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1996; idem, “ ‘Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do’: Qoheleth’s Work Ethic.” Int 55 (2001): 271-84; Christianson, E. “The Ethics of Narrative Wisdom: Qoheleth as Test Case.” Pages 202-10 in Character and Scripture: Moral Formation, Community, and Biblical Interpretation, ed. W. Brown. Eerd-mans, 2002; Fox, M. A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes. Eerdmans, 1999; Seow, C.-L. Ecclesiastes. AB 18C. Doubleday, 1997; idem. “Theology When Everything Is Out of Control.” Int 55 (2001): 237-49.
Eunny P. Lee
What role does the church play in ethics? Perhaps nothing shifted so drastically from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth century in theological and biblical scholarship than the answer to this question. Alfred Loisy, Roman Catholic modernist theologian, encapsulated much of the earlier century’s scholarship when he wrote in the early 1900s, “Jesus foretold the Kingdom, and it was the Church that came” (Loisy 166). The formation of the church had been viewed as a deviation from Jesus’ proclamation. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and a “radical monotheism” that relativized all earthly social institutions. Rather than proclaiming what Jesus proclaimed, the church proclaimed Jesus himself. Much of nineteenth-century scholarship claimed that the creation of the church was actually a mistake. Rather than an egalitarian, inclusive kingdom, we have a hierarchically structured church that took the exclusive right to mediate Jesus’ presence to the world. Some scholars referred to this as “early Catholicism” and sought to get behind it to the “original Jesus.” This “deviant” tradition culminated in Bishop Cyprian of Carthage’s famous statement, “Outside the church there is no salvation.”
Perhaps the most extreme version of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholarship could be found in Hermann Reimarus’s original quest for the historical Jesus. Reimarus (1694-1768) was a deist and biblical critic who wrote some “fragments” about Jesus’ life that were not published until after his death by the philosopher Gotthold Lessing in 1774-78. Reimarus distinguished between Jesus’ and the apostles’ teaching. Jesus, using Jewish hyperbole, taught the coming of the kingdom and the need for repentance. The coming of the kingdom was neither a mysterious nor supernatural reality, but an allegory by which Jesus sought to change the social and political institutions of his day. The apostles then altered the simple moral and political message of Jesus. They had left everything to follow him, hoping to receive the kingdom that he promised. But they misunderstood its nature. His death left them hopeless. In turn, they invented the resurrection, proclaimed themselves leaders over the new community, and secured their future (albeit not very well, since many died as martyrs!) by creating the church.
Few nineteenth-century scholars went as far as Reimarus, but his critical scholarship raised questions that haunted those who came after him, the fundamental one being this: can we trust the apostles and the biblical witness to present Jesus, or should we get “behind” it to the original witness himself? The apostles and those who wrote the Scriptures had a stake in the story ending in a particular way. Was it not in their interest to see the “church” as the conclusion to the story? If so, then should we not treat the church with a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” which is a way of interpreting that asks whose interest is served by telling a story in a particular way? By treating this interest with suspicion, we might discover better what actually happened than by being taken in by those who tell the story such that it serves their interest. This has led to a principle for interpreting Scripture called the “criterion of dissimilarity.” In one version, it suggests that the authentic, original Jesus more likely will be found when we encounter a dissimilarity between what he said and what it was in the interest of those who formed the church to say.
The preoccupation with Reimarus’s question led to a skeptical conclusion concerning Jesus’ teaching on ethics and its relationship to the church. At best, the church was irrelevant to his ethics; at worst, it betrayed them. This is why Loisy penned his memorable lines. The church prohibited the realization of Jesus’ radically inclusive and egalitarian ethics by usurping the kingdom that he proclaimed. For some, this meant that the church was a hindrance to Jesus’ ethics. The kingdom could best be found outside the church in the secular realm.
What I have been describing is a rather bald view of the dominant biblical and theological scholarship of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on the relation between the church and ethics. It is bald in the sense that the critique of the church is seldom as straightforward and thorough as one finds in Reimarus or in Loisy’s statement. However, this description is no caricature, and many scholars in both the church and the academy still uncritically accept the questions and even the answers that this scholarship raises. Yet, a sea change has occurred since this scholarship dominated. That sea change can be found in this statement by Karl Barth: “The Word did not simply become any ‘flesh,’ any man humbled and suffering. It became Jewish flesh” (Barth 166). Much earlier scholarship treated Jesus’ Jewish context as insignificant. In fact, the criterion of dissimilarity separated Jesus not only from the community established in his name (the church) but also from the community within which he lived (Judaism). Thus, the authentic Jesus would also be found in those sayings in which his words clashed with the interests of Judaism in his day. But why should we find the authentic Jesus by treating with suspicion everything that would fit him within either Judaism or the community established in his name? Only if we see Jesus as some kind of modern heroic individual whose life makes sense in opposition to the communities around him would this work. By remembering that Jesus was Jewish, we gain better insight into both the claims that the early Christians made about who he was as well as the significance of his mission that led those persons to make such claims. When we remember that he lived and fulfilled his mission within this Jewish context, we will also come to the conclusion that the church was not a mistake, but essential to the fulfillment of his mission.
Who Was Jesus?
Christianity arose because first-century Jews worshiped Jesus as God. That they did so is relatively uncontroversial. When they did so and what it means remain, and most likely always will be, contested. The clearest testimony to Jesus’ divinity comes in the Gospels themselves. It is explicit in the Gospel of John when it climaxes with Thomas confessing before the risen Christ, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). For some, this is evidence of a gradual development in the first-century understanding of who Jesus was. The early witnesses point in this direction but do not state it so explicitly. John’s Gospel is thought to be a late document, perhaps written at the turn of the century. Of course, other unambiguous testimony is found elsewhere in Scripture that demonstrates that early Christians worshiped Jesus as God. In the Gospel of Matthew, the women leaving the tomb with joy to proclaim the resurrection to the disciples met Jesus on the way. We are then told, “And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him” (Matt. 28:9). Other statements about Jesus’ divinity include Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15, although they are much more contested. Hebrews 1:3 likewise presents Jesus as the “exact imprint” of the Father.
Whether all these passages present Jesus as con-substantial with God as the church formulated it at Nicea and Constantinople in the fourth century is certainly up for debate, but that Jesus early on was worshiped is not. What does it mean that Jesus was worshiped? First-century Judaism was no monolithic religion. No “catechism” existed suggesting that it contained what all Jews should believe. So if Jesus was worshiped as divine, was it possible that he was considered to be some kind of intermediary being, along the lines of odd biblical characters such as Enoch and Melchizedek? Was he viewed as an angel, or as the personification of wisdom? And if so, would it have been unusual for first-century Jews to worship these characters? Of course, as is true of every age, scholars are divided about the answers to these questions. I find compelling those biblical scholars who argue that Jewish “radical monotheism” makes it unlikely that Jesus, had he been an intermediary figure, angel, or personification of wisdom, would have been worshiped. That first-century Jews worshiped J esus means that they saw God present in him. Just as God dwelled with Israel in the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle, so now God “tabernacles” (John 1:14) with us in the person Jesus Christ. Jesus’ body functions as the site where divinity and humanity live together in an intimate unity, which is similar to the function of the ark as it was first present in the tent of meeting and then in the temple. That in Jesus we find “true God” and “true humanity” united forever in one person leads us to recognize that the church, which is the continuation of this body, is essential for Christian ethics.
What Did Jesus Do?
Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, called people to repentance, gathered twelve disciples, and headed toward Jerusalem, where he was arrested, tortured, and crucified. His disciples then proclaimed him risen from the dead. They continued to go to synagogue, but they included him in their worship. Why they did this can best be seen in the context of Jewish eschatology. It held forth the hope that God’s glory would return to Jerusalem, indwell the temple, and restore Israel so that Jews could live as God’s people, making themselves and the land “holy” as God intended when they were given the Torah. When Jesus gathers twelve disciples and heads toward Jerusalem, what he is doing makes best sense against this J ew-ish expectation. When he arrives in Jerusalem and overturns the tables in the temple and claims that he will destroy it, this expectation has taken an odd twist. If Jewish hope held forth the expectation of the return of God’s glory to the temple, then why would Jesus call it into question by claiming in this parabolic way that it was doomed? John’s Gospel, which unlike the Synoptics sets this event at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, gives us insight into it. Only after the resurrection did his disciples recognize that the destruction and rebuilding of the temple signified that Jesus’ material body was now the site of God’s glory. This is why he said he would “rebuild” the temple in three days (John 2:19-22). The dogmatic tradition understands this as the foundation for the church. Jesus’ body is the site of God’s glory, now mediated through history by Word and sacrament constituting those who receive this mediation as the ongoing presence of his body. This is called the “threefold form” of the body of Christ. First is his material, historical risen body that is no longer present to us as it was to his disciples. Jesus ascended to the Father and sends the Spirit to mediate his presence. It is mediated through the second form, his Word and sacrament, which is why we call the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper “the body of Christ” and Scripture the “Word of the Lord.” When we receive these forms, which then require discipleship or following after Christ, we become a third form of his body, the church. It is also called “the body of Christ.” All of this, of course, is thoroughly biblical language. But it could be confusing for it suggests a multiplicity to Christ’s body. Is his body the risen, ascended body? Is it the Word and Sacrament? Or is it the church gathered in his name? The answer is yes, and with that answer we begin to understand the importance of ecclesiology for ethics.
Ecclesiology and Ethics
The church makes Christian ethics possible because only through it can Christians participate in Christ’s body, receiving his righteousness, without which a Christian ethics makes no sense. This revises what is meant by the term ethics. Usually it is understood as an achievement that people can attain through their own natural powers. Aristotle, for instance, thought that everything had an end or purpose for which it was naturally inclined. This natural inclination brought with it the natural means to be able to attain its end. Just as an acorn has within it what is necessary to become an oak tree, so the human person naturally has the means to achieve his or her end. Although both the acorn and human person required the proper environment in which to pursue that end, this environment was still natural to the pursuer. Christian ethics can learn a great deal from Aristotle as well as most traditions of ethics, but it requires something more. A Christian ethic requires a supplementation that is more than natural in order for human creatures to achieve their end, for the end of the Christian life is not to achieve some natural end but to dwell with God. This is done by making God’s name holy. The end of the Christian life is found in the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . . .” Christian ethics seeks to make God’s name holy in all our natural, ordinary activities so that God and creatures can dwell together as God intends. This cannot be done without using the natural means at our disposal. As one Jewish teacher quipped, “Any God who won’t tell you what to do with your pots and pans and genitals isn’t worth worshiping” (Hauerwas and Willimon 20). God uses the natural means that God created to make his name holy. But God uses these natural means, which requires that they become something more than natural. How can this be?
Jesus’ perfect obedience alone fulfills the requirement that we make God’s name holy. Anselm of Canterbury explained this well. He addressed the question how God could redeem the world through the suffering and death of an innocent man. Was this not a worse offense than the offense that caused the fall in the first place? Anselm responded, “Therefore God did not compel Christ to die, when there was no sin in him, but Christ himself freely underwent death, not by yielding up his life as an act of obedience, but on account of his obedience in maintaining justice, because he so steadfastly persevered in it that he brought death on himself” (Anselm 113). Christ’s obedience was not simply his willingness to offer up his life as a sacrifice; it was more his perfect act of obedience in fulfilling the justice of God. He was willing to live as God intended human creatures to live even to the point of the cross. The cross was the indirect effect of Jesus’ direct willing of obedience to the Father. It is this obedience that restores the harmony to a fallen creation.
For Anselm, then, God is not a pure power over the creation who could just snap his fingers and will that the harmony be restored. God cannot merely wink at the disruption of his good creation and act as if all is well. The work that makes it harmonious must still be accomplished in order for God to dwell in his creation as he intended. This dwelling took place first in the garden of Eden, but after the fall God no longer lives with creatures in that harmony. God, however, does not abandon them; God elects a people and dwells with them in the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle, which itself is modeled after the garden. God’s presence then dwells in the temple, behind the temple veil in the holy of holies. For Christians, this presence of God, God’s glory, returns to Jerusalem in the incarnation, mission, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. He calls and institutes twelve apostles, equipping them to be his body in the world. Whoever receives them receives him. They are filled with the Spirit at Pentecost and reverse the curse of Babel. Harmony, unity, and peace are restored. God dwells with them.
So what does this mean for ethics? Christian ethics is not figuring out the proper method for making moral decisions. It is not a utilitarian calculation of the consequences of actions. Nor is it a commitment to law or a system of laws. It is not a casuistic analysis of difficult cases, or the cultivation of virtue within some generic community. All these ethics have their place, and Christian ethics can learn, and has learned, something from each of them. Christian ethics is about discovering that site where God dwells with creatures and creatures with God so that we can participate in the harmony and restoration of God’s good created order, thereby making God’s name holy. That site is Christ’s body, which is the church. It is what Christ accomplished in his work, and he summons us to participate in it. This does not mean, of course, that Christian ethics asks nothing more of us than that we go to church, say our prayers, and return to our everyday lives as if nothing has happened. To meet the glory of God in church is to be met with a power that can only transfigure. We have not truly been to church until we are bedazzled with that transfiguration. The similarity between the theophany that occurs when God dwells in the tabernacle and Jesus’ transfiguration manifests the relation between these two sites:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey. (Exod. 40:34-36)
And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matt. 17:2-5)
We “set out on the journey” once we are dazzled
by the light.
See also Holy Spirit; Kingdom of God
Bibliography
Anselm of Canterbury. “Why God Became Man.” Pages 100-183 in A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, ed. E. Fairweather. LCC. Westminster, 1956; Barker, M. The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem. SPCK, 1991; Barth, K. Church Dogmatics. Vol. IV/1. Trans. G. Bromiley. T&T Clark, 1988; Bock-muehl, M. Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics. Baker Academic, 2000; Hahn, S., ed. Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos, Church, and Human Heart. Vol. 4 of Letter and Spirit. St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 2008; Hauerwas, S., and S. Wells, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Blackwell, 2004; Hauerwas, S., and W. Willimon. The Truth about God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life. Abingdon, 1999; Lohfink, G. Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God. Trans. L. Maloney Liturgical Press, 1999; Loisy, A. The Gospel and the Church. Fortress, 1976; Long, D. S. Christian Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010.
D. Stephen Long
The rise of ecological awareness and environmental concern is a relatively recent phenomenon. Rachel Carson’s hugely influential book Silent Spring, which drew attention to the impact of chemical pesticides in particular, was published in 1962 and has been credited with initiating the modern environmental movement. The environmental pressure groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were formed in 1971. By the beginning of the third millennium, with an increasingly well-established scientific consensus regarding the likely impact of global warming caused by human activity, ecological issues had acquired a high public prominence and come to the center of ethical and political debate.
As with all such contemporary ethical challenges, Christian theologians turn to Scripture for wisdom and instruction. Already in 1954, with remarkable prescience, Joseph Sittler articulated the need for a “theology for earth,” a theology that would rekindle a positive view of the earth as bound up in God’s redemptive work. In a famous 1961 address to the World Council of Churches, calling for ecumenical unity, Sittler drew attention to the potential of the cosmic Christology of Col. 1; such a Christology offered a doctrinal basis for drawing the whole of creation into the orbit of God’s redemptive purposes.
It was, however, the significant critical challenges to the biblical and Christian tradition that prompted reconsideration of the Bible’s ecological implications. In particular, much discussion has focused on the issues raised by a now classic article by Lynn White Jr. published in 1967 and frequently cited and reprinted ever since. White argued that the (Western) Christian worldview, rooted in the creation stories and the notion of humanity made in God’s image, introduced a dualism between humanity and nature and established the notion that it was God’s will that humanity exploit nature to serve human interests. Thus, Christianity bears “a huge burden of guilt” (White 1206) for introducing the anthropocentric Western worldview that has permitted and promoted the active and aggressive conquest of nature for human ends. White does not explicitly cite biblical texts, giving only an overview of the biblical creation story, and his arguments concentrate much more on the historic development of Christian thought and early science during the period in which he specializes, the medieval era. Nonetheless, his forceful critique of the impact of the biblical tradition, especially the “dominion” text in Gen. 1:26-28, has stimulated a range of (often defensive) responses from biblical scholars.
Another important critical challenge focused on the impact of biblical eschatology. Some prophetic and apocalyptic texts present images of cosmic destruction associated with the coming “day of the Lord” (e.g., Joel 1:15; Amos 5:18-20; 1 Thess. 5:23). Catastrophes and natural disasters are depicted as a necessary precursor—the so-called messianic woes—to the final day of salvation (e.g., Mark 13). And Paul depicts Christians being “caught up” to meet the returning Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:16-17). Particularly difficult from an ecological perspective is 2 Pet. 3:10-13, a text that not only describes a forthcoming cosmic conflagration but also encourages believers to be “hastening the coming of the day of God” on which this destruction will take place. From such texts, along with the enigmatic apocalyptic scenarios depicted in the book of Revelation, have developed various forms of contemporary Christian eschatology. For example, some evangelical Christians anticipate a “rapture” of Christians from the earth prior to a time of great tribulation; some urge that the return of Christ will happen suddenly and may well be imminent. Such visions of the future have been popularized in hugely successful books such as Hal Lindsay’s The Late, Great Planet Earth (1971) and the “Left Behind” series of the 1990s by Tim La-Haye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It is not hard to see that such beliefs can engender the view that preserving and caring for the earth is not a priority, and there is some evidence that, at both governmental and individual levels, this has influenced decisions and policies in the United States. Indeed, a few fundamentalist writers have explicitly opposed environmentalism, depicting it as part of a (satanic) neopagan New Age movement and as promoting an unbiblical and unchristian pantheism. Again, these views raise critical questions about the kind of attitudes toward the environment that the Bible stimulates and supports.
The rise in awareness of ecological issues and the more specific challenges posed to the biblical tradition have engendered various kinds of engagement with Scripture. One prominent approach has been a primarily apologetic one eager to show, contrary to the criticisms of White and others, that Scripture does not legitimate ruthless exploitation of the environment and offers positive resources for ecological ethics. Other approaches have taken a more critical stance toward the Bible in their development of an ecological hermeneutic.
Apologetic Responses: Recovering Scripture’s Ecological Wisdom
Lynn White’s early critique has stimulated a number of treatments of the dominion text in Gen. 1:26-28. Biblical scholars have argued that this text, in its original historical context, does not envisage any kind of mandate for technological domination of nature to serve human purposes. Indeed, studies of the history of the impact of this text have concluded that it is only in the period of the sixteenth-century Renaissance, with the rise of modern science, that dominion comes to be seen as a human vocation—to “play the role of God in relation to the world” (Bauckham 167). In relation to the eschatological texts, the most common apologetic strategy has been to argue that the texts envisage the transformation of the earth, not its total destruction, such that there is continuity between “old” and “new” creation (see Finger).
In terms of the positive interpretation of these challenging texts, the most influential approach to Gen. 1:26-28 has been to read it as implying a human responsibility for stewardship of the earth. This approach picks up the use of kingly language in this text and interprets it within the broader treatment of kingly rule in the OT. This kingly rule, it is argued, was not (at least ideally) about exploitation and domination but rather about a responsibility to ensure the well-being and flourishing of those under the king’s care. Other texts are important in developing a focus on stewardship as well, notably Gen. 2:15, from the second creation account, where the human is placed in the garden “to till and keep it.” Indeed, the stewardship model of humanity’s relationship to the earth has become a central plank in many attempts to construct a biblical ecological ethic and, more recently, in a realignment of evangelical leaders and bodies behind a more environmentally conscious vision of Christian responsibility. There are, however, those who question the value of stewardship as a central category for an ecological ethic, highlighting its primarily economic and managerial imagery and suggesting that it conveys too anthropocentric and hierarchical a view of humanity’s relationship to the earth (e.g., Palmer).
Unsurprisingly, among the various eschatological texts it is those that depict a positive future transformation of creation that tend to loom large in ecological discussion; such texts seem to offer more positive potential for engendering ecological ethics than do the difficult texts such as 2 Pet. 3:10-13, which require some apologetic treatment. Some prophetic visions, notably in the book of Isaiah, depict a future peace that encompasses animals as well as humans, restoring an original peaceable, nonpredatory creation (cf. Gen. 1:29-30). Isaiah’s famous and influential vision of the messianic age anticipates a time when “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid. . . . The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isa. 11:6-7; cf. 65:25). This, along with a promise of justice and liberation for the poor and oppressed, is what the establishment of righteousness will mean. These visions, then, have provided biblical resources for those who argue that Christian ethics should include a concern not only for human welfare but also for the peace and well-being of all creation. In the NT undoubtedly the favorite text among ecotheologians is Rom. 8:19-23. Here, in encouraging hope among the Christians at Rome, Paul states that the whole creation yearns to be set free from its bondage to decay and to share in the freedom of the children of God. In other words, the whole of creation is bound up with humanity in God’s liberating and redeeming purposes. In contrast to texts such as 2 Pet. 3, Rom. 8 does not speak of cosmic destruction followed by renewal but rather implies a process of eschatological transformation in which the children of God—redeemed humanity—have a central place: creation anticipates sharing in their glorious liberty.
Other biblical texts also contribute significantly to what is perhaps the key shift of focus generated by the interest in ecological questions: a broadening of the traditional anthropocentric concern with human salvation and human relationship to God toward an emphasis on the whole of creation as bound up in God’s loving and saving purposes. As is common in the history of engagement between Scripture and ethical issues, new and changing contemporary contexts have brought new questions to the agenda and different biblical texts to the center of attention. Alongside those already mentioned, important texts for ecological ethics include the following. Genesis 9:1-17, despite its description in Bible translations and commentaries as “God’s covenant with Noah,” is strikingly emphatic about the fact that this covenant is made with every living thing, with the whole earth. Some of the psalms, especially Pss. 104; 148, depict creation as a witness to the glory and greatness of God (Ps. 104; cf. Pss. 19:1-6; 136:5-9) and as called to join in praise of God (Ps. 148; cf. Pss. 66:1-4; 96:1; 97:1; 98:4-9). The latter theme is greatly expanded in the Greek additions to the book of Daniel (Sg. Three 35-68 at Dan. 3:23), taken up into liturgy as the Benedicite. The idea that all of creation is called to praise God might suggest an ecological reformulation of the classic Westminster Catechism: it is not only humanity’s chief and highest end “to glorify God and fully to enjoy him forever” but also the whole creation’s. The closing chapters of the book of Job (Job 38-42), in the speeches that God thunders from the whirlwind to an ultimately subdued Job, have been seen to offer a powerful critique of the notion that humanity is supreme in creation and of unique importance to God. Instead, God presents a catalog of the wonders of the nonhuman world, all of which exist in relation to God without any reference to their significance for humans. There is here, it seems, a clear decentering of humanity. In the NT, along with Rom.
8:19-23, Col. 1:15-20 offers strong support for the idea that God’s reconciling work in Christ encompasses the whole cosmos, not only human beings. The phrase ta panta (“all things”) runs repeatedly through this christological hymn, with Christ as the one in, through, and for whom all things were created, and through whom “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.” The Gospels offer less directly relevant material, since Jesus does not comment on such themes, but his teaching on God’s care for the birds and flowers (Matt. 6:26-28; 10:29; Luke 12:6, 24) is often cited as showing God’s care for the whole of creation. Jesus’ frequent use of imagery from nature and agriculture in his teaching is also held to indicate his awareness of and harmony with the natural world.
By drawing attention to such texts and their potential ecological significance, and by defending other texts against the critical charges of Lynn White and others, biblical scholars and ecotheologians have sought to show how the Bible can offer wisdom and instruction relevant to shaping human attitudes to the nonhuman world, foundations for a Christian ecological ethics.
Ecojustice Principles: The Earth Bible Project
A rather different approach to interpreting the Bible in the light of contemporary environmental issues has been developed by the Earth Bible Team, based in Adelaide, Australia, and published between 2000 and 2002 in an initial five-volume series under the general editorship of Norman C. Habel. In contrast to the approach of many “green” evangelicals, the approach taken by the Earth Bible Team reflects both a desire to avoid “cherry picking” merely a few favorite ecofriendly texts and a criticism of the view that the Bible is, or can be shown to be, ecofriendly. Habel, for example, commenting in 2000 on “the vast array of works on ecotheology that have flooded the market in the past 20 years,” argues that “the vast majority of these works assume that the Bible is environmentally friendly and quote biblical passages uncritically to support the contention that an ecological thrust is inherent in the text” (Habel, Readings, 30-31). The team’s approach does not by any means entail a denial that there is ecologically valuable and instructive material in the Bible, but it does require that an engagement be critical, ready also to expose and resist the material that is anthropocentric and negative toward the earth. The approach is guided by a series of “ecojustice principles” that provide a basis for the critical evaluation of biblical texts from the perspective of a commitment to ecojustice:
1. Principle of intrinsic worth: The universe, Earth, and all its components have intrinsic worth/value.
2. Principle of interconnectedness: Earth is a community of interconnected living things that are mutually dependent on one another for life and survival.
3. Principle of voice: Earth is a subject capable of raising its voice in celebration and against injustice.
4. Principle of purpose: The universe, Earth, and all its components are part of a dynamic cosmic design within which each piece has a place in the overall goal of that design.
5. Principle of mutual custodianship·. Earth is a balanced and diverse domain where responsible custodians can function as partners, rather than rulers, to sustain a balanced and diverse Earth community.
6. Principle of resistance: Earth and its components not only suffer from injustices at the hands of humans, but actively resist them in the struggle for justice. (Habel, Readings, 24)
These principles developed “in dialogue with ecologists” deliberately avoid specifically biblical or theological terms in order to “facilitate dialogue with biologists, ecologists, other religious traditions . . . and scientists” (Habel, Readings, 38). The biblical texts are then read in the light of these ecojustice principles and found to warrant positive recovery or negative resistance according to whether and how they cohere with the principles.
For example, Habel rejects any attempt to “soften” the meaning of Gen. 1:26-28. This text legitimates harsh control of the earth and its other creatures by humans (Habel, “Geophany,” 46-47). As such, it forms an unfortunate intrusion into the story of the beginnings of life on earth (Gen. 1:1-25), in which life emerges through a fruitful collaboration between God and Earth (capitalized as a character by Habel). Other writers in the series expose and criticize the anthropocentrism that they find in certain biblical texts (e.g., Ps. 8) while also drawing attention to the geocentric perspectives that can be found (e.g., Job 38-42). The work of the Earth Bible Project, continuing in a Society of Biblical Literature seminar on ecological hermeneutics, represents the most sustained and methodologically self-conscious attempt to engage with the Bible from an ecological perspective. The published volumes cover a wide range of biblical texts. Yet there are questions to be raised about how the approach connects with the approaches and concerns of Christian theology and ethics, as will become clear below.
Ecological Theology and Ethics Both of the approaches surveyed above can be subjected to criticism in the quest to articulate a cogent basis for engaging Scripture in ecological ethics. The apologetic approach, as Habel’s criticism suggests, tends to imply the claim that the Bible’s message is one of positive value and concern for the environment—a claim notably embodied in The Green Bible, published in 2008. This claim is problematic in at least two respects. One is in its failure to acknowledge fully the extent to which certain “difficult” texts resist any retrieval for the ecological agenda; attempts to show otherwise remain unconvincing. The other is in its tendency to obscure the extent to which what is presented as “biblical teaching” is not simply a repetition of “what the Bible says,” despite claims to the contrary, but rather is a particular construal of certain biblical texts prioritized over other biblical texts and read in the light of a particular understanding of the reader’s contemporary context. For example, the claim that stewardship constitutes the biblical view of humanity’s responsibility toward creation, encapsulated in Gen. 1:26-28, and that readings that see that text as legitimating human domination of nature are “distortions” of its meaning (e.g., Hill 38, 42) fails to acknowledge the extent to which both views are a particular and (more or less) plausible interpretation of this text and others. One reading emerged in the context of Enlightenment optimism about the possibilities for progress with the application of human knowledge, while the other arises in the context of much more recent awareness of the extent to which human activity has had destructive and unforeseen consequences for the complex and interdependent ecosystems that we inhabit.
The approach taken by the Earth Bible Team is preferable to the extent that it recognizes the variety within the biblical texts and acknowledges that some texts will remain problematic from an ecological perspective. Instead, the team presents the ecojustice principles as a statement of ethical commitment that guides the engagement with the biblical texts. There is a major difficulty with this approach, however, at least in terms of an approach to doing Christian theology: authority effectively lies not with the Bible or the Christian tradition but rather with the ecojustice principles. It is these that encapsulate a set of norms to inspire and instruct human belief and action. Why, then, should Christians find these principles persuasive enough to serve as a basis for ethical commitment and critical evaluation of the Bible? From where do these principles derive? Do they represent a specifically Christian theology and ethics, a rearticulation of the Christian tradition? It is evident that the Earth Bible Team does not want to present the principles in this way (see above). Instead, the principles seem to represent a summary of modern, scientifically informed, ecojustice commitments, something formed independently of the Christian and biblical traditions, in which case the Bible becomes pretty much dispensable.
What would seem to be needed, at least as a model for engaging Scripture in contemporary Christian theology and ethics, is an approach that falls somewhere between these two alternatives. One example of such an approach has been outlined, specifically in the context of an attempt to develop an ecological hermeneutic, by Ernst Conradie. For Conradie, it is important to appreciate how appropriation of the Bible in Christian theology is shaped by heuristic or doctrinal keys—justification by faith in the Lutheran tradition, liberation in liberation theology, stewardship in some recent ecotheology, and so on. The crucial point is that these doctrinal keys “are not directly derived from either the Biblical texts or the contemporary world but are precisely the product of previous attempts to construct a relationship between text, tradition and context.” These doctrinal keys are made in the ongoing encounter between reader and text and in the attempt to fuse the distant horizons of both. As such, these keys have a “double function. . . . They provide a key to unlock the meaning of both the contemporary context and the Biblical texts and simultaneously enable the interpreter to establish a link between text and contemporary context” (Conradie 306). Just as any key offers a positive new way to construct relevant meaning from the Bible, so also, Conradie insists, it will inevitably “distort” both text and context, perhaps ideologically—that is, in legitimating and concealing the interests of dominant social groups. Doctrinal keys therefore should be subject to a hermeneutic of suspicion. But precisely by identifying them as doctrinal or hermeneutical keys, rather than as simply what the text “says,” this critical suspicion is invited.
Such an approach invites an engagement with the biblical texts that is exegetically serious but also acknowledges such an engagement to be, inevitably, a constructive and creative act shaped by the perceived priorities of the contemporary context. To function as a form of constructive Christian theological engagement does not imply that such a reading must avoid any criticism of biblical texts. It does mean, however, that there will be some positive construction of doctrinal keys, formed in the encounter between reader and text, which in turn may serve as a criterion for critical appropriation. Just as Luther found in Paul’s writings a message of justification by faith through grace alone, which then became the hermeneutical and theological heart of the Lutheran tradition, shaping a whole tradition of (critical) biblical interpretation and theological doctrine, so our own context, with its ecological crises and environmental pressures, may inspire new kinds of engagement with the Bible, new readings with new doctrinal keys at their heart.
From this kind of interpretive perspective we can begin to see how some of the ideas found in the biblical texts mentioned above might contribute to an ecological reconfiguration of Christian theology and ethics. The creation story of Gen. 1 repeatedly insists that everything that God made is “good” (1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31), and the covenant of Gen. 9 binds God in eternal commitment to the whole earth (9:12-16). The psalms convey the idea that all creation shares the vocation to join in praise of God, while the book of Job punctures any human arrogance and self-importance. The eschatological visions of the prophetic literature depict a creation restored to peace and fertility, while the inaugurated eschatology of the NT texts suggests that the whole creation is already bound up in the transforming work of God in Christ, a reconciliation of the whole cosmos, and that Christians have a responsibility to embody and promote the realization of this goal. Bringing such texts into central focus can help to reshape the theological tradition such that creation becomes not merely the stage for the drama of human salvation but also fully involved in the process and eager to share in its outcome.
This does not, of course, resolve the difficulties of the biblical texts that appear to run counter to any commitment to care for the earth, but it does represent a self-conscious approach to interpretation that, like other theological traditions in the past, chooses to place certain biblical themes and motifs at the heart of its constructive enterprise. Luther famously found the Epistle of James of rather doubtful value compared with Romans and Galatians, with their exemplary presentation of the gospel message of justification by faith; similarly, in the light of the ecological challenges that face us, certain biblical texts may prove more valuable and important than others in constructing an ecological theology and ethics.
When it comes to the specific task of doing ecological ethics, it should be clear that what the Bible has to offer is general and theologically embedded orientations rather than guidance on specific issues. If, for example, we regard stewardship as a doctrinal key that emerges from a constructive ecological reading of Scripture, then this will imply a certain view of the relationship between humankind and nature and a certain model of God-given ethical responsibility. However, it will tell us very little about what stewardship might require in practice regarding specific dilemmas or questions. Similarly, if we find the idea of creation’s praise a compelling theological theme, then this will shape and inform a sense of creation’s value and purpose. It would seem to imply an imperative to foster and sustain creation’s beauty and diversity. But again, this provides little by way of specific guidelines when it comes to decisions about particular situations. More significantly still, despite the ecotheological weight placed on eschatological texts such as Rom. 8:19-23, there is no explicit or direct ethical instruction evident in the conviction that God is in the process of bringing about the renewal and liberation of the whole creation. To be sure, one can well argue that the role that Paul ascribes to the children of God—the ones whom creation longs to see revealed—implies a responsibility on their part. But this responsibility, and any ecological dimensions to it, are not stated in the text and thus must be developed by contemporary interpreters.
This does not mean that specific ethical guidance on matters of ecological relevance cannot be derived from an engagement with Scripture. For example, the Torah’s regulations for compassionate treatment of agricultural animals (e.g., Deut. 22), allowing a Sabbath rest for the land and making provision for a Jubilee Year (Lev. 25), and so on are potentially significant for a contemporary ecological ethics in general and a model of agricultural sustainability in particular. Andrew Linzey is among those who argue that the eschatological visions of a restored nonpredatory paradise (Isa. 11:6-9; cf. Gen. 1:29-30) provide a biblical basis for Christian vegetarianism: Christians should anticipate and work toward this vision of a nonviolent creation, and abandoning the killing of animals for food is one possible and significant step in this direction (Linzey 125-37). Christopher Southgate, drawing particularly on Rom. 8, argues that human efforts to end the extinction of species would be an appropriate response to the vision of the liberation of creation, in which the children of God take the responsibility associated with their freedom and glory in Christ (Southgate 124-32). But in these and other examples ecological ethics emerges from a reading of Scripture strongly informed by science, philosophy, theology, and contemporary ethics.
This is unsurprising, for ecological ethics is one area of Christian ethics where scientific insight has crucially formed our awareness of the very modern issues that we face—issues arising from, among other things, a vastly expanded human population, industrialization, and globalized consumer capitalism. These issues, and scientific awareness of them, are absent from the biblical writers’ purview. In this area of contemporary ethics, at least, sufficient guidance cannot be found from the Bible alone but rather must come from a careful and constructive engagement between Scripture, contemporary science, and the traditions and approaches of Christian theology and ethics.
See also Animals; Bioethics; Creation, Biblical Accounts of; Creation Ethics; Eschatology and Ethics; Jubilee; Stewardship; Vegetarianism
Bibliography
Bauckham, R. God and the Crisis of Freedom: Biblical and Contemporary Perspectives. Westminster John Knox, 2002; Berry, R., ed. The Care of Creation: Focusing Concern and Action. InterVarsity, 2000; Bouma-Prediger, S., and P Bakken, eds. Evocations of Grace: The Writings of Joseph Sittler on Ecology, Theology, and Ethics. Eerd-mans, 2000; Conradie, E. “The Road towards an Ecological Biblical and Theological Hermeneutics.” Scriptura 93 (2006): 305—14; Finger, T. Evangelicals, Eschatology, and the Environment. Evangelical Environmental Network, 1998; Habel, N. “Geophany: The Earth Story in Genesis 1.” Pages 34—48 in The Earth Story in Genesis, ed. N. Habel and S. Wurst. Sheffield Academic Press, 2000; idem, ed. Readings from the Perspective of Earth. Sheffield Academic Press, 2000; Hill, B. Christian Faith and the Environment: Making Vital Connections. Orbis, 1998; Horrell, D. Ecology and the Bible. Equinox, 2010; Horrell, D., C. Hunt, and C. Southgate. “Appeals to the Bible in Ecotheology and Environmental Ethics: A Typology of Hermeneutical Stances.” SCE 21 (2008): 219—38; Linzey, A. Animal Theology. SCM, 1994; Palmer, C. “Stewardship: A Case Study in Environmental Ethics.” Pages 67—86 in The Earth Beneath: A Critical Guide to Green Theology, ed. I. Ball et al. SPCK, 1992; Southgate, C. The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil. Westminster John Knox, 2008; White, L. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155 (1967): 1203—7; Wilkinson, L., et al. Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources. Eerdmans, 1980.
David G. Horrell
A basic reality motivates modern thought and action on economic development. The contemporary world has large numbers of both very wealthy and desperately poor people. Thanks in part to modern science and technology, well over one billion people today enjoy food, housing, education, healthcare, and recreation unknown to even the aristocrats of earlier centuries. At the same time, the World Bank reports that one billion people try to survive on one dollar a day and almost two billion people on two dollars a day. They struggle with inadequate food, housing, healthcare, and education. Many conclude that economic development to enable the poor to enjoy a decent life is both a moral imperative and a technological possibility.
There is not, however, widespread agreement on the definition of economic development. For many in the 1960s and 1970s, economic development meant economic growth measured by an increase in a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Human reason using science and technology was to be the means to economic development, understood as rising personal incomes, growing GDP, increasing industrialization, and technological improvement.
It soon became clear, however, that poverty results from more than just the lack of the right tools for effective agricultural and industrial production. Inadequate worldviews and unjust structures also produce poverty.
In 1990, David Korten defined development as “a process by which the members of a society increase their personal and institutional capacities to mobilize and manage resources to produce sustainable and justly distributed improvements in their quality of life” (Korten 67). Korten considered inadequate three earlier attempts at development: relief programs to feed hungry people, community development efforts to nurture faster economic growth, and structural change to create more just, sustainable socioeconomic systems. Without denying significant value in these efforts, Korten advocated mobilizing people’s movements to energize and drive change.
In 1999, Nobel Prize—winning economist Amartya Sen published Development as Freedom. “The expansion of freedom,” he argued, is “the primary end” and “the principal means of development” (Sen xii). Sen understands poverty to be the “deprivation of basic capabilities,” not merely a very low income. Development, therefore, requires the emergence of five types of freedom.
Political freedom means civil rights and democratic political processes. Political freedom is both good in itself and a factor in avoiding poverty Widespread famine, Sen notes, has never occurred in a democracy because politicians know they would lose the next election. Economic freedom involves genuine opportunities that persons have to own property and freely decide what to produce, sell, and consume. Social freedom requires societal choices that provide such things as education and healthcare for all so that all have the actual freedom to live better lives. Transparency freedoms refer to societal structures (courts, political processes, economic systems) that are transparent and open rather than corrupt. Protective security or freedom means a social safety net to prevent persons from experiencing abject misery, even starvation and death.
All these freedoms, Sen argues, are both essential to economic growth and also good in themselves. Therefore, comprehensive development requires the expansion of all these freedoms.
Sen’s view of development as freedom is helpful. But his understanding of freedom is highly individualistic. The freedom that Sen desires is “more freedom to lead the kind of lives we have reason to value” (Sen 14). For Christians, that does not provide an adequate goal for economic development. Sinful persons often choose destructive things. We need a goal for development that transcends the personal preferences of sinful individuals.
In 1999, Bryant Myers (then vice president at World Vision International) included a crucial spiritual component in his book Walking with the Poor. Poverty is not only the lack of food, power, and Sen’s various freedoms. Poverty, as Jaya-kumar Christian rightly argues, also arises from spiritual deprivation: the sinful God-complexes of the powerful and rich who oppress the poor, misguided worldviews, the marred self-image of the poor, and the destructive activity of unseen fallen spiritual powers.
The spiritual component that Myers adds is crucial. To suppose that human reason via science and technology can save us is naive. Only God can save us. To look for lasting transformation only at the level of community development, structural change, or even people movements is one-sided. We must also understand the spiritual factors that disempower the poor. Spiritual transformation is essential if our development work is to be truly Christian and genuinely sustainable.
Worldviews that persuade the poor fatalistically to accept their oppression and believe the oppressor’s view of their worthlessness must give way to a biblical worldview where the God of the poor demands justice for all and creates every person in the very image of God. The transforming power of personal faith in Christ can restore marred self-identity, transform broken persons, and energize work for justice. Spiritual transformation is a crucial component of genuine development.
Myers is also helpful in insisting that a Christian understanding of the kingdom of God provides the best context for understanding the goal for genuine development. The ultimate goal is not just fewer people who are chronically malnourished, although that is enormously important. The ultimate goal is not community development and more just structures, although both are essential. The ultimate goal is not more personal freedom for individuals, although the Creator who chose to make every person in the divine image and grant them freedom wills genuine freedom for everyone. The ultimate goal is shalom—right relationships with God, neighbor, earth, and self.
The NT teaching on the kingdom of God shows that this divine shalom has broken into history decisively in the person and work of Jesus Christ and will come in its fullness at Christ’s return. Christians know where history is going. Christians know that at some time in the future Christ will return to establish complete shalom, the fullness of right relationships. Therefore, Christian development seeks to move persons, communities, nations, and the whole world in that direction. “This kingdom frame is inclusive of the physical, social, mental and spiritual manifestations of poverty, and so all are legitimate areas of focus for transformational development that is truly Christian” (Myers 113).
That is not to say that economic development includes everything that is included in God’s shalom. Rather, it is that part of shalom that pertains to economic life. But it is only within the larger framework of the fullness of shalom that we can properly understand economic development and the means to promote it.
We can deepen our understanding of economic development if we reflect further on poverty and its causes, God’s special concern for the poor, and the nature of economic justice.
There are many causes of poverty (Sider, chap. 7). Some poverty results from sinful personal choices. Wrong choices about drugs, sex, work, and marriage clearly contribute to poverty. Some poverty is caused by natural disasters. The proper response is immediate aid so that people do not starve. Some poverty results from the lack of proper technology. To correct this, we use technological solutions such as developing better agricultural methods.
And some poverty results from great inequalities of power that have produced unjust systems and unfair structures. Continuing poverty among native peoples around the world is to a large degree the result of oppressive (often European) colonizers who seized their land and destroyed their way of life. In developing countries, local powerful landowners often use their power to oppress workers. In every nation, those with the most power abuse that power to write laws and operate government and business in ways that disadvantage the weakest. And globally, the richest, most powerful nations shape the patterns of international trade in ways that regularly benefit them and sometimes increase poverty for others. Structural change is the only adequate solution to systemic injustice.
Finally, as we have seen, spiritual blindness and oppression also create poverty. Rebellion against God and God’s ways leads to bad choices and bad systems that create poverty. Fallen spiritual powers seek to destroy God’s good creation. Effective economic development will work to correct all these causes of poverty.
Understanding the many complex causes of poverty, however, does not mean that we should indefinitely expand our definition of poverty. I doubt that it is helpful to say that “poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings” (Myers 86). Is the very wealthy landowner oppressing his workers poor? Is the proud, arrogant, promiscuous heiress poor? In many ways, very wealthy people are “poor in spirit.” They certainly need to be changed by the gospel. But it does not advance clarity of understanding to call all that poverty. Terms such as pride, injustice, and sexual promiscuity are more helpful.
It is instructive to remember that the biblical words for the poor have an overwhelmingly economic component. The most common Hebrew words for the poor ('ant, ’ebyon, dal) connote a beggar imploring charity; a thin, weakly impoverished peasant; or an economically impoverished person who has been wrongly oppressed. The primary NT word (ptochos) refers to a beggar who is completely destitute and therefore must seek help from others. Only occasionally in the Scriptures do the words for the poor refer to “spiritual poverty” (Sider 41, 100-101). In biblical teaching, the understanding of poverty is primarily economic. Retaining that framework does not mean that we ignore the vast array of other things that violate shalom and displease God, but it does mean that we use other names—pride, injustice, hypocrisy, racism, adultery, and so forth—to refer to them.
Essential to a biblical concept of economic development is a clear understanding of God’s special concern for the poor. There are literally hundreds of verses in the Bible about this. The Scriptures teach that God acts in history to lift up the poor (Deut. 26:5-8); God acts in history to pull down rich, powerful people who get rich by oppression or who refuse to share (Jer. 5:26-29); ministering to the needy is, in some mysterious way, actually ministering to Christ our Lord (Matt. 25:35-40); failure to embrace God’s concern for the poor means that self-confessed Christians are not really God’s people at all (Matt. 25:41-45) (Sider, chap. 4). Few preachers talk as much about God’s concern for the poor as the Bible does.
Finally, we need a definition of economic justice if we are to know how to shape Christian development programs. The Bible does not demand equality of income or wealth; wrong choices rightly have negative economic consequences. But the Bible does demand equality of opportunity up to the point where every person and every family has access to the productive resources so that if they act responsibly they can earn their own way and be dignified members of their community.
We can see this norm for economic justice if we examine the OT teaching about the land. Since Israel was an agricultural society, land was the basic capital—the basic asset for producing wealth. When the people of Israel moved into the land of Canaan, God ordered that every family receive its own land (Josh. 18:1-10). Then when the kings of Israel slowly centralized land ownership, the prophets pronounced God’s judgment and predicted national destruction (Isa. 15:5-8; Amos 5:4-5, 10-12; 7:10-17). But the prophets also promised a future messianic day when every person would own land again (Mic. 4:4). In an agricultural society, land is the basic capital. In an information society, it is education and knowledge. In every society, good economic development will promote a situation where all have access to the productive resources so that if they act responsibly, they can earn a decent living and be dignified members of their society.
The word poverty refers not to everything wrong with the human condition but rather to a cluster of deficiencies related to a lack of essential material resources (food, clothing, etc.), societal resources (education, healthcare, etc.), social power, and the inner brokenness caused by such deprivations. The causes of these deficiencies, however, are complex: personal and social, mental and structural, material and spiritual. Similarly, the term economic development does not signify everything that we need for human flourishing, but almost everything we need for full shalom relates somehow to economic development. Furthermore, we do need transcendent norms to show us what economic justice is and how economic development fits within the larger goal of full shalom. With the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated, we can now have the firstfruits of that dawning shalom. With his return, we will enjoy its fullness.
See also Economic Ethics; Land; Poverty and Poor; Wealth; World Poverty, World Hunger
Bibliography
Christian, J. “Powerless of the Poor: Toward an Alternative Kingdom of God Based Paradigm of Response.” PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1994; Korten, D. Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda. Kumarian Press, 1990; Myers, B. Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development. Orbis, 1999; Schlossberg, H., V. Samuel, and R. Sider. Christianity and Economics in the Post-Cold War Era: The Oxford Declaration and Beyond. Eerdmans, 1994; Sen, A. Development as Freedom. Knopf, 1999; Sider, R. Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity. 5th ed. Thomas Nelson, 2005.
Ronald J. Sider